Former DeSantis Staffers Push Back on ‘Trash’ Politico Hit Piece

When Dustin Carmack first met Ron DeSantis at a Heritage Foundation dinner in 2012, he made a couple of early observations: One, that at 34, DeSantis was young for a congressman, and two, that he was articulate and interesting. He gave off the vibe of a frat brother who happened to be “rocking James Madison quotes verbatim off the top of his head,” Carmack said.

Carmack, then a young Heritage Action staffer, came away impressed. He and DeSantis had a “mind meld on policy,” he said. He’d never wanted to work on Capitol Hill, but ended up going to work with DeSantis, first as his legislative director, then as his congressional chief of staff.

“He’s literally the hardest worker and one of the smartest people I’ve ever met,” Carmack told National Review. The two remain friends, and DeSantis recently attended his wedding.

Carmack is one of many DeSantis loyalists pushing back on a section of Friday’s Politico Playbook newsletter that reported that the Florida governor and potential 2024 Republican presidential candidate treats his staff like “expendable widgets.”

The Politico reporting, which leaned almost exclusively on unnamed sources, asserted that DeSantis has a “brain trust of two: himself and his wife, Casey.” According to Politico, DeSantis “has left behind a trail of former disgruntled staffers,” and has “no long-standing political machine to mount a national campaign.” DeSantis comes across in Politico as an aloof boss who blames his staff for his own mistakes, and who must be lured with cupcakes to meet with them.

But Politico downplayed a five-page rebuttal from DeSantis’s current chief of staff that name-checked two dozen current or former DeSantis staffers who described him as a “true leader” who rewards hard work. National Review reached out to a half dozen current or former DeSantis staffers, and most of them had nothing but praise for the governor. Most described DeSantis as a high-energy leader who treats employees with dignity and respect.

Mike Howell, who was the senior counsel for a national security subcommittee DeSantis chaired in congress, described him as funny, accessible and “just a ball of massive energy.”

He said he was surprised by the Politico reporting.

“I think there are a lot of people out there, media included, that are deathly afraid of a Ron DeSantis presidency. And so, they’re trying to find anything they can to knock him down a peg,” Howell said. “They have to resort to this oldest trick in the book to get a couple unnamed, disgruntled staffers to say something bad about him because they can’t find anything else.”

“Of all the people I’ve worked with who have worked around or with Ron DeSantis, I’ve never heard such a thing,” Howell added. “So, where is this coming from? Who are these people?”

Howell doubts any of this would have been reported if DeSantis wasn’t a “national superstar” and a “serious contender” for the presidency. But, ultimately, he isn’t worried about it.

“What is the best they’ve got? Nothing,” he said. “They have unnamed sources about just a generalized environment where they weren’t allowed to be king of the castle.”

Current and former staffers who spoke to National Review said Politico’s decision to allow unnamed sources to slime DeSantis was “disappointing,” and called it “trash journalism.”

Meredith Beatrice, who started working with DeSantis’s communications team during his campaign in the fall of 2018, called the allegations in Politico “baseless” and “completely untrue.” She was recently promoted to another role in state government, and said she’s “been treated with nothing but dignity and respect” by DeSantis. But, she acknowledged, “these are tough jobs” that require “intense hours,” especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the last year, it hasn’t been uncommon for staffers to report before dawn and work past midnight.

“We all stuck together. We believed in the governor, believed in his leadership,” Beatrice said. “You don’t get that type of commitment and work out of so many people without being a strong leader or being good to your team.”

Helen Aguirre Ferré, who was DeSantis’s former communications director and is now the executive director of the Republican Party of Florida, called the Politico narrative “tired and stupid.” She said most of the turnover in the DeSantis administration is natural.

“The work we do with Governor DeSantis is rigorous and demanding, which is what we sign up for as public servants,” she wrote in a statement. “It is a privilege to serve Floridians, and quite frankly, we don’t have time to cradle the bruised egos of those who were not up to the job.”

Carmack said it is true that DeSantis keeps his cards close to his chest, and he does have a small circle of trust. He said DeSantis has had bad experiences with political consultants in the past.

“It’s not that he doesn’t trust people,” Carmack said of DeSantis. “I just think he thinks a lot of people have alternative agendas.”

“He works his tail off. If you don’t want to come and put the work in, it’s probably not the job for you,” Carmack said about working for DeSantis.

Not everyone who spoke with National Review was effusive about DeSantis as a boss. One former DeSantis staffer in Florida, who did not want to be named, described Politico’s reporting as “very true,” and said, “I think it hit the nail on the head.” There is a loose network of former DeSantis employees who are there for one another, the staffer said.

The staffer said DeSantis’s employees often didn’t have the resources they needed, people who crossed DeSantis’s wife could be frozen out, and DeSantis didn’t often look to his staff for direction.

“He’s laser-focused,” the staffer said. “He reads profusely. But he doesn’t, after he’s done, say here’s the decision I’m thinking about, what do you guys think?” Rather, more often it’s “Here’s the decision I’ve come to decide, make it happen.”

The staffer said DeSantis is not a bad guy, he can just be a tough boss. But it’s also not fair to describe the people who spoke to Politico as just disgruntled former employees, the staffer said.

“I had a hell of a time trying to work together with him,” the staffer said, but added, “I’d vote for him tomorrow, because he’s a hell of a conservative leader.”